Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 07:55:28 09/03/98
Go up one level in this thread
On September 03, 1998 at 10:44:24, Robert Henry Durrett wrote:
>On September 03, 1998 at 03:36:20, Didzis Cirulis wrote:
>
>>Hi programmers,
>>
>>For quite a some time I have a desire to understand the chess programming. I am
>>not a programmer myself, but if I want to write a small chess program, where
>>should I start?
>>I know you you are experts in this field, but are you ready to help an absolute
>>beginner?
>>
>>Best regards,
>>
>>Didzis
>
>I, too, am "an absolute beginner" at programming [writing efficient computer
>code], and I, too, wish to create computer code to implement and test my own
>ideas.
>
>Are our two cases really "just hopeless"? Do we need to go back to college and
>pursue a college degree in Computer Science?????
>
>One thing I was "taught" in graduate school is that one must learn how to
>produce results without the help of a "babysitter." [No insult to teachers is
>intended here!] Unfortunately, learning efficient programming appears to be a
>daunting challenge. Is it really? How long would it take an absolute beginner
>to achieve sufficient proficiency [by self-study] at programming so that quality
>chess software code could be produced by that person? [Please assume that the
>"student" had nothing else going on in his/her life.]
You can start with a very modest program written in QBasic or VBasic or Pascal
(without any offense to these programming language). Write a program that
generates all the moves from a given chess position.
This is chess programming. It easy enough so you can achieve this first goal,
while learning the language. It is fun enough to see your program enumerate
chess moves that you will be interested enough to succeed.
If you proceed this way and try to reach a higher interesting goal each time,
you will both develop a real chess program and learn programming.
The secret is: choose a (sub)goal that you can reach with enough efforts. Not an
impossible goal. And choose a really interesting goal so that you keep your
motivation day after day. When a (sub)goal is reached, choose another more
advanced target. And so on...
And always keep it fun. The day it becomes a pain, the game is over. The only
thing needed is motivation (and a computer :) ).
Christophe
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